If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Re: 7.5 Earthquake --- Near Youse Guys?

@ zqwertysj maybe able to tell us how it is in California for artesian water, they use a lot in the north there for the grapes etc.
The market garden for the US tooo (sic) I believe.

OK - Artesian wells are dying in SoCal - I don't know about NorCal too much, but with the recent climate change (it's evolution-al, not human-induced) - they too are having a lot of water table problems.

I had bought a 40 acre parcel in Chihuahua Valley near Mt. Palomar - and it had 4 Artesian wells on it. The seller told me that they were old wells that had been producing for aeons and would continue to do so for aeons more. I had him include that claim in the escrow proceedings.

If the wells were to go dry, then I'd not have to make payments on the property until they returned to service. He agreed, snickering that he had made a good deal. I have never trusted water in wells as a rule and I thought that I had the better deal.

In less than four months, all four wells went dry - sucking sand. After two years he bought me out for the total of the contract - not just the unpaid balance - I made him buy me out completely. With simple interest. I won.

Anyway - I have a great well in Concho, Arizona. If I take the test cap off it and the pump is NOT running, the water shoots up over 40 feet. That means that I have at least 20 lbs of water pressure without a pump running. (1/2lb pressure per foot of lift ... approx!)

With me living in Montana now - I can say this: The water table here is about 1 1/2 inches below the top of my lawn. In summer, the ground literally waves at me as I walk across the north 8 acres. My well house floods and I have to pump the water out of it all summer long. I love that I never have to water my lawn or the garden - it's done for me by the water table being so close to the surface.

I would hazard a guess that SoCal is dying to refresh the aquifers.... but I don't see that happening even with this past few day's worth of heavy rain and flooding. You see, the water that falls is directed into the sea since they have very few retarding basins or impoundments to hold it for any sizeable length of time. Streets are flooded, houses are a-sliding and yet none of the water makes it a few hundred feet to the underground aquifers.

Of a more devastating problem is the Ogallala Water table under the 'breadbasket' of the US. Here's a Wiki on it.....

The Ogallala Aquifer is a shallow water table aquifer surrounded by sand, silt, clay and gravel located beneath the Great Plains in the United States.

One of the world's largest aquifers, it underlies an area of approximately 174,000 sq mi (450,000 km2) in portions of eight states (South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas).

It was named in 1898 by geologist N. H. Darton from its type locality near the town of Ogallala, Nebraska. The aquifer is part of the High Plains Aquifer System, and rests on the Ogallala Formation, which is the principal geologic unit underlying 80% of the High Plains.

Large scale extraction for agricultural purposes started after World War II due partially to center pivot irrigation and to the adaptation of automotive engines for groundwater wells.

Today about 27% of the irrigated land in the entire United States lies over the aquifer, which yields about 30% of the ground water used for irrigation in the United States.

The aquifer is at risk for over-extraction and pollution.

Since 1950, agricultural irrigation has reduced the saturated volume of the aquifer by an estimated 9%.

Once depleted, the aquifer will take over 6,000 years to replenish naturally through rainfall.

The aquifer system supplies drinking water to 82% of the 2.3 million people (1990 census) who live within the boundaries of the High Plains study area.

Aquifer water balance

While groundwater is a renewable source, reserves replenish relatively slowly. The USGS has performed several studies of the aquifer, to determine what is coming in (groundwater recharge from the surface), what is leaving (water pumped out and baseflow to streams), and what the net changes in storage are (rise, fall or no change).

Withdrawals from the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation amounted to 26 km3 (21,000,000 acre⋅ft) in 2000. As of 2005, the total depletion since before development amounted to 253,000,000 acre feet (312 km3).

Some estimates indicate the remaining volume could be depleted as soon as 2028.

Many farmers in the Texas High Plains, which rely particularly on the underground source, are now turning away from irrigated agriculture as they become aware of the hazards of overpumping.

Groundwater recharge

The rate at which recharge water enters the aquifer is limited by several factors.

Much of the plains region is semiarid, with steady winds that hasten evaporation of surface water and precipitation.

In many locations, the aquifer is overlain, in the vadose zone, with a shallow layer of caliche that is practically impermeable; this limits the amount of water able to recharge the aquifer from the land surface.

However, the soil of the playa lakes is different and not lined with caliche, making these some of the few areas where the aquifer can recharge.

The destruction of playas by farmers and development decreases the available recharge area. The prevalence of the caliche is partly due to the ready evaporation of soil moisture and the semiarid climate; the aridity increases the amount of evaporation, which in turn increases the amount of caliche in the soil.

Both mechanisms reduce the amount of recharge water that reaches the water table.

Recharge in the aquifer ranges from 0.024 inches (0.61 mm) per year in parts of Texas and New Mexico to 6 inches (150 mm) per year in south-central Kansas.

This whole area is collectively called the Bread Basket of The Us...... and not for poor reasons. In the event that SoCal and The Imperial- and The Coachella Valleys -all fail to produce crops, then the onus for feeding the US alone cannot be met.

That's bad news for a lot of the rest of the world since a lot of THEIR food also comes from there.